The folks at Ivy Tech Community College may want to give Joel Silverman a call for some advice as they consider whether to close some of the locations where the school offers classes.

Silverman is a former commissioner of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles who came to state government from the retail sector.

Former Gov. Mitch Daniels appointed him at the start of his first term to overhaul the state's license branches and implement a new computer system.

The latter eventually was Silverman's undoing. The rollout was so difficult and led to so much public outrage that Silverman eventually resigned.

But before that happened, he managed what many commissioners before him had failed to achieve - the closure of a number of smaller license branches.

For years, BMV officials had produced report after report saying the state needed to close license branches to make the system more efficient. Silverman said customers at the state's busiest branches were waiting in line as the state subsidized operations at slower locations with little demand.

He said making the branches more customer oriented couldn't happen without cutting the system back.

"It's a lot easier to turn around a horse than an elephant," he told lawmakers.

Ivy Tech President Thomas Snyder said Wednesday that the school is operating in the black but wants to find about $78 million in funding to provide better services and hire more full-time faculty.

Silverman was speaking at a study committee meeting that lawmakers called in the summer of 2005 to question him about the decision to close more than 20 branches, an announcement the BMV had made just days after lawmakers had adjourned their session for the year.

The timing was key to the agency's success. Although Silverman angered members of the House and Senate with the move, he knew that had he named the branches slated for closure just a few days earlier, lawmakers would have likely banned the move in state law.

That's because lawmakers care a lot about government efficiency - except when it threatens their own districts. So Silverman's only chance was to act fast and without giving lawmakers a heads up.

Still, there's no better way to tick them off.

Ivy Tech officials can probably tell you something about that.

Earlier this summer, The Indianapolis Star reported that Ivy Tech administrators were considering whether to close some of the school's locations as part of a larger effort to save cash. That came as a surprise to key lawmakers.

None of the school's "official" campuses are at risk. Those are the places where the General Assembly provides money for building construction and maintenance.

State Budget Committee Chairman Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, told Ivy Tech officials they need to include lawmakers in decisions to eliminate some locations.

But roughly 50 of the 72 places where the school offers classes are leased spaces paid for with private funds, by local communities or by Ivy Tech with money that would otherwise go to paying professor salaries or offering student services.

Lawmakers didn't wait long to act. They called Ivy Tech President Thomas Snyder to a State Budget Committee meeting last week to answer questions about the move. At that meeting, Chairman Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, told Snyder "everybody's confused and feeling like we're receiving mixed signals."

So Kenley plans to have Snyder and other Ivy Tech officials back again and again to appear before the committee to provide updates on their deliberations about campus closures.

The message from lawmakers seemed clear: Don't close any locations without talking to us first. And given that 40 percent of Ivy Tech's funding comes from the state, school officials have little choice but to take part in joint discussions.

But whether the talks will lead to an Ivy Tech system with a smaller footprint is unclear. Silverman might have been able to make it happen with the BMV but he didn't keep his job too much longer.

Lesley Weidenbener is managing editor of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.